To black workers in this picturesque South Carolina town, the unionized steel mill anchors their community. To the town’s white civic leaders, it blocks Georgetown’s gentrification. For the past two years, they’ve been fighting it out.

The Catholic Church in America—once an ally of workers and their unions—grew deferential to big money in recent decades. Now, prompted by the Pope, a new generation of labor priests and bishops is trying to change that.

The Kansas governor’s attempt to create supply-side nirvana in Middle America not only failed to grow the economy—it created a crippling crisis of government that led to a statewide rejection of his politics.

America’s mega-state is now clearly its leftmost, too—and on social insurance, climate change, and immigrant rights, it has more capacity and desire to defeat Republican reaction than any other institution.

To black workers in this picturesque South Carolina town, the unionized steel mill anchors their community. To the town’s white civic leaders, it blocks Georgetown’s gentrification. For the past two years, they’ve been fighting it out.